Rapp grabbed the man’s right wrist and wrenched it up behind his back. Aabad howled in pain. Rapp moved his face within inches and spat, “I know what you’ve been up to, you crazy motherfucker. You tortured my guy last night, didn’t you? You cut off three of his toes, stuffed him in a trunk, and burned him.” Rapp saw the recognition in Aabad’s eyes – the shock that he had been discovered. He twisted the arm further.

“I want to talk to my lawyer!” Aabad screamed. He now had tears in his eyes and was grimacing from the pain.

Rapp laughed, “That ain’t gonna happen. You know why? Because I’m not a cop.” He stuck his gun into Aabad’s face. “You know many cops who carry silencers, you idiot? I’m going to give you two choices, Aabad.” Rapp wrenched the arm a little further and over Aabad’s howls, he said, “You either talk to me, or I cut your toes off, just like you did to my guy. Except I doubt you’ll make it to three. In fact, I bet you start blabbering before I make the first slice.”

“I want my lawyer!” he cried.

Rapp turned to Ridley and was about to tell him to get the car, when the sounds of the city were dwarfed by a booming clap and then a rumble that carried over their heads and rolled toward Maryland. To the uninitiated, it could have been confused with thunder, but not to Rapp and Ridley. They both knew exactly what it was, and before they could verbalize it, two more explosions ripped through the air.

CHAPTER 65

MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

NASH stood at the back of the Operations Center on the sixth floor of the National Counterterrorism Center and stared up at the wall at the far end of the room. The big fifteen-by-twenty-foot screen was divided in four. One section showed the estimated casualty numbers from the attack, and the other three showed images of each blast site. The smaller screens along each side were providing live feeds from FOX, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Al Arabia, and the local NBC affiliate.

They had hit three restaurants at almost precisely 12:30. Right in the middle of the lunch rush. The estimated numbers of casualties were staggering. The number on the board right now was at three hundred. Nash was so shocked by it that he had to ask Art Harris if it was a typo. The FBI’s deputy assistant director for the CTC Division said his guy actually thought it might be low.

Nash stood there and stared in semi-disbelief. He’d seen carnage up close over in Afghanistan and Baghdad, but he was just a visitor over there. It was different when it was the city you lived and worked in. On top of all of that was the agonizing fear that the terrorists had gotten their hands on one of the NCTC’s own threat assessments. This attack was right out of a scenario they’d been warning about for several years. All three targets – the Monocle, Hawk ’n’ Dove, and Bobby Van’s – were actually named in the report as locations of extreme concern.

Nash’s assistant, Jessica, approached and said, “The director is on the line for you, and so is your wife.”

“Tell Maggie I love her and I’ll call her later.” Nash stepped forward and put his hand on the shoulder of the man who ran the floor, Senior Operations Officer Dave Paulson. “Dave, you mind if I use one of your phones?” Paulson had four computer screens and three phones on his desk.

He pointed to the one on the far right.

Looking to Jessica, Nash said, “I’ll take it here.”

Five seconds later, the phone began beeping. Nash picked it up and said, “Hello.”

“Mike,” said Kennedy, “I’m in the Situation Room at the White House. When are we going to get those traffic cameras up and running?”

“Any minute, I’m told.”

“Do we know what happened?”

“The system was hacked. They thought they could handle it, but that’s obviously not the case, so I put Marcus on it. I talked to him five minutes ago and he says he’s close.”

“There’s a bit of an incident here. The CBS correspondent just asked the press secretary to confirm a report that these were radiological devices. She claims to have a source in Homeland. Do you have any information that would support that claim?”

Nash could tell by the tension in her voice that she was pissed. “I have heard nothing of the sort. We’re barely an hour into this thing, but our sensors would have picked up a dirty bomb immediately.”

“That’s what I told the president,” she said with frustration, and then asked, “Have you heard any rumors?”

“No, and I’m standing in the Ops Center right now. DOE has their teams at each site, and they’ve given us the all-clear.”

“You’re positive, because the president wants to address the nation in ten minutes. He wants to step on this thing before it creates a panic and people try to flee the city.”

“Hold on a second.” Nash leaned over and asked Paulson, “Dave, have you heard anything about a radiological device?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head vigorously. “Fire and rescue reported nothing, Metro said nothing, and DOE gave it the once over and came up all clear.”

“Thanks.” Nash took the phone off his chest and said, “We’ve got nothing here. She’s either fishing or the rumor mill is working overdrive.”

“I agree. Hold on a second.”

Nash could hear Kennedy passing his assurances onto someone else. After about twenty seconds she came back on the line. “Before I let you go, could you clarify these casualty numbers for me? Why is the Hawk ’n’ Dove so low and Bobby Van’s so high?”

“Apparently a city bus full of people was stopped in traffic when the bomb went off at Bobby Van’s. Also, Bobby Van’s seats more people. The Hawk ’n’ Dove is smaller, and they’re saying the meters were full in front so the guy had to double-park next to a pickup truck, which, fortunately, absorbed most of the blast.”

“Do you have any names for me?”

Nash was afraid this was coming. The Hawk ’n’ Dove was located on the House side of the Capitol and was a favorite haunt for congressmen. The Monocle was on the Senate side, and on any given day you could easily find a half dozen senators having lunch. Bobby Van’s was a block away from the White House, and right across the street from the Treasury Department. Nash had heard nothing concrete at this point, and he wasn’t going to be the one to start any rumors. In a noncommittal voice he said, “I don’t have anything yet.”

“Well,” Kennedy said, her voice hinting of bad news. “This is not for distribution, but Secretary Holtz and Secretary Hamel were having lunch at Bobby Van’s.”

“Shit,” Nash said softly as he looked at his bird’s-eye view of the rescue effort on 15th Street. The secretary of the treasury and the secretary of commerce in one fell swoop. Two cabinet members.

“We’re not getting much information from the Monocle. Do you have any updates?”

Nash glanced up at the big screen and looked at the image that was being provided by an air force Predator drone circling over the city. He had just spoke to Art Harris, who had spoken directly to one of his agents on the scene. “It’s not good.”

“Elaborate,” she said.

“Complete structural failure. The initial blast tore away half of the building, and then the upper floors came down on whatever was left. Harris told me a few minutes ago that one of his guys on the scene says the only way anyone survived was if they were in the basement, and even then it’s iffy.”

“So these estimated casualties at the Monocle are likely to be fatalities.”

“I’m afraid so. We’re calling every senators’ office to see if we can get an idea of who might have been in there.” Again, he listened while Kennedy relayed the news to someone else. He thought he heard the president’s voice, and then Kennedy came back on.

“What about these suspects that Mitch picked up?”

“They should be here any minute. Last I heard they were stuck in traffic. He wanted me to make sure you talked to Senator Lonsdale, though.”